WiSpry, integrating MEMS with active silicon

Earlier this week, WiSpry received an additional $7 million of Series B funding, brining the company’s total funding to $18 million so far. Based out of Irvine, California, WiSpry is a fabless semiconductor startup focused on the mobile communications market. In particular, the company has developed programmable radio frequency (RF) products which are made possible through the company’s patented integration technique of micro-electro-magnetic-systems (MEMS) devices with typical industry RF-CMOS flows. This in turn enables MEMS to be manufactured in regular IC foundries rather than in specific MEMS foundries as is done typically. For those not familiar with this technology, MEMS are microscopic devices that utilize moving parts to accomplish mechanical actions. Many companies utilize MEMS in their products, for example, TI the largest MEMS manufacturer in 2006 utilized them in their DLP chips, while Canon and HP utilized them in their printers. The real benefit of WiSpry’s approach is that it enables really tight integration of micro-electronics with micro-mechanical devices, effectively enabling complete system-on-a-chip solutions. According to the company, their process can be integrated with active silicon and is process agnostic, thus able to work with CMOS, SiGe, BiCMOS and GaAs. Currently, WiSpry’s product line is a family of RF-MEMS tunable digital capacitors that are offered in networked configurations. These capacitors operate similarly to regular parallel-plate capacitors, however the distance between the plates is tunable due to MEMS technology, and as such the capacitance can be varied. This product line is initially targeted at wireless devices for antenna tuning and filter applications. Further down the line WiSpry envisions the integration of their technology into transceivers, low-noise amplifiers and power amplifiers. The important part here is for the integration of the MEMS not to slow-down the production of the rest of the ICs significantly, or else it might become more cost effective for companies to do the production of these two separately. However, if this challenge can be overcome and given the fact that the market for wireless devices which require ever tighter integration of components is still growing, the market opportunities for WiSpry seem lucrative.